Struggle
by Fentown
Summary: Delivery boy Gaara just wants to finish high school and get out of Konoha. But fate has other plans for him. AU, Yaoi SasuGaa
1. Just another delivery

**This is my first fic. Reviews are cherished.**

**AU, Yaoi, SasuGaa, Gaara a little OOC- he's still antisocial but I didn't want him to be too predictable. **

**Disclaimer: Do I need one? I promise not to impersonate Masashi Kishimoto. Naruto isn't mine and never will be.**

**- - -**

A lone figure moved through the moonlit streets of Konoha. He was almost invisible in the darkness. Almost. But almost was no gaurantee that no one was watching. Gaara shivered in the cool night air and pulled his collar higher over his neck. Numb fingers fumbled and almost dropped the slender package hidden discreetly beneath his coat.

The street was deserted and his footsteps echoed softly. Would they attract notice? This was a heavily guarded area. Gaara stopped for a moment, listening. But the night was silent. When minutes passed with no change he started forward again. The Otogakage didn't like visitors.

Tired, but alert eyes flicked over each dull grey facade he passed.

_21... 22... 24... 25..._

_Wait, what?_ Gaara paused once more, this time in confusion. His gaze never wavered from the two buildings before him. He was used to midnight deliveries and his nightvision was excellent. Their curb numbers clearly read 22 and 24. Only a black ally existed between them. _Fantastic. Where did these people learn to count?_

He rechecked the address scrawled on the package's brown paper wrapping. The handwriting was messy, but not illegible. 23, Elm Street, Konoha. Gaara glanced up at the rusted sign proclaiming the street name in bright green ink. Someone had spray painted various swear words on it. Charming.

This was the right street, so where was the fucking building? Gaara shifted nervously. Sometimes the places he delivered to had hidden entrances. If the city planner just didn't like the number 23, he was screwed.

A car backfired in the distance. Yelling ensued. _God, I hope I'm out of here before any shots are fired. The last thing I need is a bullet wound. _

He ducked quickly into the ally between 22 and 24. Sure enough, there was a small door toward the back. He would have missed it had the moon not chosen this moment to come out from behind a cloud. A dingy bronze 23 glinted eerily in the new moonlight. Gaara knocked purposefully and stood back. The door opened slowly, as if expecting to shut at any moment. First an eye appeared, then the rest of a face. The man behind the door was nondescript in appearance save for his dull orange hair.

"What do you want? We're closed." His tone was low and dangerous.

"I'll only be a minute. Can I come in?" Gaara kept his face carefully neutral.

"Come back tomorrow." The man slammed the door shut.

_Well aren't you just a bucket full of sunshine?_ He would need to try a different approach.

He stepped back up to the door and knocked. When the door didn't open he searched for a doorbell. There wasn't one, so he knocked again, louder, and more incessantly.

The door opened a crack to reveal the same man, looking slightly angrier.

"I told you, we're closed. Come by tomorrow and I'll hook you up. People are trying to sleep man. Piss off."

So this was a crack house. Before the man could shut the door again, Gaara blocked it with his foot. "Wait!" Looking as innocent as possible and injecting just enough urgency into his voice, he tried to Bullshit his way in. The package had to be kept a secret. Itachi had been very clear about that. This was a covert mission.

"Please, there's someone I really need to talk to inside. I promise not to make any trouble. I just need to talk to her. I made a terrible mistake and I don't know what I'd do if I didn't tell her before it's too late." Gaara prayed this guy had a penchant for young love.

The man regarded Gaara silently, his expression softening. After a moment he spoke. "What's her name? When she wakes up, I'll tell her you stopped by."

"It's-" Fuck. What was the name? The red head struggled to remember. Krista? Why couldn't that ass have written it down. No it was something more like...

"It's Karin. but what I have to tell her is private. I know she'll understand if you wake her up."

The man's face paled. "You- what do you want? Karin's not- I mean she doesn't live here anymore." He tried to shut the door again but Gaara caught it before it crushed his foot.

"Please! It's very important I speak with her. Can't you at least tell me where she might be? I'm a friend." He did his best impression of a baby deer.

The man stared at Gaara hard for another minute through narrowed eyes. Finally, a long sigh wracked his skinny frame and he waved Gaara inside.

Inside happened to be just as depressing as outside. A few people dozed on a scruffy couch in the center of the room and the acrid smell of smoke hung in the air. The man strode across the room and pointed down the hall.

"Second door on your left, kid."

"Thank you so much- Sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"Jugo." He grunted before slumping onto the couch beside a woman with black hair.

Jugo. That might come in handy later. Gaara thanked him again and made his way over the dirty shag carpeting to the room the man had indicated.

The door was ajar. Inside, Gaara could see another woman fast asleep on a small bed. Her shoulder length red hair was tangled with sleep and she had a thin line of drool running down her chin. Gaara knocked softly. Apparently she was a light sleeper because her eyelids fluttered and she groggily propped herself up on her elbows, squinting at the door. Gaara stepped inside.

"Karin?"

"Who wants to know?" The woman reached for a pair of round-framed glasses and slipped them onto her face.

"Well are you Karin or not?"

"It's my room, I'll ask the questions here." Her eyes narrowed. "And so what if I am?"

"If you are, I have a package for you." Gaara was getting bored of this. He longed to climb into his own bed and pass out. It had been a long day.

The woman's expression changed from anger to shock in a heartbeat. "You don't mean...?"

"I'm just the delivery boy, do you want it or not?" He held out the unexceptional brown bundle to her.

The woman slid out of the bed, eyes transfixed on what Gaara held in his hand. She would recognize that handwriting anywhere. Once she was a foot away she grabbed it from his hand, cradling it to her breast.

Gaara shrugged off her odd behaviour and headed towards the door. He had a long, cold walk ahead of him.

In a dim room at 23 Elm street, the woman called Karin waited until the crimson haired boy's footsteps had died away completely before carefully opening the package. She let the wrapping fall to the floor and stared at the sealed scroll she now held in awe. A single coiled snake was stamped into the now-dry wax. Her fingers itched to break the seal and read it, but this letter wasn't intended for her. Orochimaru would be returning next week and she knew he would be very, very pleased. Karin smiled to herself and placed her new treasure in the wall safe above her bed and laid back down.

Gathering clouds overhead promised rain, but Gaara was asleep in his bed before the first drops started to fall, blissfully unaware of what events he had just set into motion.

**- - - **

**Be kind, review.**


	2. Just another day

**Whaow... Is that me who hasn't updated in forever? I swear I wasn't holding out for more reviews (I luuv the ones I got!). I don't have an excuse, actually.  
**

**Anyways, Chapter Two... & for those of you still reading, Chap. 3 will be out soon. :D**

**Comparatively.  
**

**X X X X X**

Heavy baroque curtains muffled the sound of rain pounding on glass. The digital clock on Gaara's bedside table flashed 4:02am. He blinked, staring up at the dark ceiling. He could just barely make out the spidery crack above his bed.

_Drip. _

It was leaking again. Gaara's eyes followed as each drop splashed into an old teapot Gaara had found tucked away in a closet. Probably not the best thing for the job, but it worked well enough.

_Drip._

Gaara stretched, used to early mornings. His body, for whatever reason, had never let him sleep more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night, even as a child. The constant sleep deprivation had left dark rings around his eyes. It was one of the reasons the other children had always been frightened of him, his eyes coupled with his striking hair and pale skin made him stand out a mile away in Japan, and only slightly less where he lived now.

_Drip._

The clock changed to 4:15. Gaara turned over and tried to focus on his breathing. He didn't really expect it to help, but everything he'd read suggested it could help even the most hard-core insomniacs. In... and out.

_Drip._

In... and out. How long had it been raining? All night? Wait, breathing.

In... and out. He wondered idly if he had any messages. In... and out.

_Drip._

In... and out.

_Drip._

In... and out. _This is stupid._

He glanced over at his clock. 5:18 flashed back at him. _Pointless too._ He felt wide awake.

Gaara threw his covers at the wall, careful not to upset the teapot, and began to rummage through his hulking old dresser for something to wear. Looking at it, he couldn't help but wonder how its spindly little legs could possibly hold up something so heavy. Gaara shut the drawers carefully.

Downstairs with a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, Gaara cleared the remnants of last night's hurried dinner before making breakfast. While going through the empty cupboards he made a mental note to pick up some groceries after work. Today, oatmeal would have to do.

He took his time eating. It had been a while since he'd had a morning off and he wanted to enjoy it. He checked his phone. His siblings hadn't called, but then, it wasn't really their numbers he'd been looking for. The rain had stopped and everything sounded loud in the silence. Gaara drummed him fingers on the table.

Enjoy it. Gaara reached for an apple from the fruitbasket on the table but recoiled when his fingers met squishy flesh. Everything was half-rotten. Gaara threw the basket's contents out in disgust and went back to his oatmeal. It was pretty good, cinnamon flavoured. Not much sunlight came through the large window overlooking the front yard. A tall row of hedges almost completely blocked the house from view from the street. Gaara glanced up at the wall clock, also baroque. If the gratuitous spiderwebs were any indication, it might have been as old as the house.

4:30.

_What?_ How could it have only been twelve minutes? He washed the dishes, feeling a little put out, and sat back down. It really had been a while since he'd had nothing to do all morning. No, not nothing. That made it sound as if he were bored. He wasn't bored, just... unoccupied. The silence really was absolute. To distract himself, Gaara looked around the kitchen; small, but clean. Certainly uncontaminated by fruit.

So quiet. Shouldn't there at least be... the ticking of a clock? He glanced at it perched on the wall. A minute passed but the hands didn't move. _Batteries must have died..._

But then what time was it really?

_Shit_. It felt like hours since he'd gotten out of bed. If he was late he'd be made to stay after school and being late to work was not a good idea. Kakuzu would absolutely relish docking his pay. That guy loved money a little _too_ much. Gaara bit his lip and sprinted back upstairs.

His little bedside clock flashed 4:45am.

This was getting old.

* * *

_Ten minutes 'til the end of class. Just ten minutes and school is over._

Gaara had spent the remainer of the morning investigating the details of his landlord's house. Even though he'd been living there for almost three years, ever since his father had sent him to Canada for high school, he'd never bothered to go through the literally dozens of dusty volumes stacked on bookcases in the study. Many were written in an old fashioned style which was difficult to decipher and the grand majority had scribbling in the margins, criticizing the original authors. Most interestingly, between a copy of War and Peace and a Jane Austen novel he'd found a large stash of pornography. From the fifties. All of it reupholstered as different books.

Gaara had only met his landlord a few times. Once for a tour of the house ten minutes before moving in, once when he'd had to drop by to give Gaara the spare set of keys and a few times after that when the man had come to retrieve some books he'd needed for work. Apparently, Jiraiya, in addition to having the taste in furniture of an old woman from the sixteenth century, was also a pervert. Gaara grinned, wondering just what type of novels the man wrote, then stopped when he remembered where he was. _Still eight minutes until class is over._

He looked up at his math teacher with impatience. The man had been lecturing in a bored voice, further muffled by the mask he always wore, about sinusoidal functions for the past 20 minutes and he sounded like he could go on for the rest of the period. Nothing seemed to faze him. People sleeping in class, people passing notes; he didn't care. He just kept talking... Gaara glanced around the room. One or two kids actually were taking notes. He could see a girl with long black hair scribbling something in her notebook. The girls around her were gossiping in whispers about who was cute and who was dating who and did she really think that rumour was true? No way. Shut up! no, you shut up!

"And that's all there is to it. Now to recap, who can tell me what an asymptote is?" Kakashi leaned against the chalkboard.

One or two math enthusiasts raised their hands tentatively, reluctant to put themselves in the spotlight. Kakashi's visible eye surveyed the classroom and settled on someone slumped over on their desk.

"Kiba would you be kind enough to wake your friend up, I would love to know his take on the matter."

Okay, maybe he did care. The girls stopped talking long enough to watch Naruto get scolded.

The specified boy leaned over and nudged him. Naruto didn't stir. Kiba nudged him again, almost knocking him out of his seat. This woke the blond up.

"Ah! What the fu-" Naruto muttered, startled.

"Ah, good. You're awake. Please answer the question Mr. Uzumaki."

"Huh? Whaa..." Naruto looked around at the board.

"The question I asked the class, maybe about... oh, one and a half minutes ago. Please write the answer on the board."

Naruto laughed nervously. "Uh..."

"I'm sorry, is there some reason that you cannot? Some medical condition I am unaware of? Perhaps you are allergic to chalk?" Kakashi took a piece and held it out to him.

"Sorry sir..." Naruto sounded more tired than sorry.

"Mr. Uzumaki, if I catch you sleeping in my class again, I will notify your parent or guardian of your behaviour." A few snickers were raised at this. Kakashi ignored them and turned to the board to draw a graph.

Naruto looked slightly confused. A number of people were still slumped over their own desks, not even pretending to pay attention. After a moment, he raised his hand.

"But sir- why am I the only one being punished?"

Kakashi spoke without turning back. "You're not being punished Mr. Uzumaki, I have simply delivered you a warning. Now, please pay attention." This answer didn't seem to satisfy Naruto and he stared moodily at the math teacher's back until the end of class. When the bell finally did ring, Naruto was the first one out the door. Gaara watched him go.

* * *

The only light in the room came from a flickering bare bulb. Gaara stared at the mountains of nondescript boxes and sighed. It was 3:40 and he was in the gang's prison-like storage room, looking for something Zetsu had requested, or rather, Zetsu had lost his favourite mirror and he wanted Gaara to find it. He checked another box for the correct date. Too recent. Or maybe too old. Itachi's handwriting was ridiculously hard to read and at least half the boxes in there he'd dated himself. Still, it was at least marginally better than Deidara's. Guess who'd done the other half?

Gaara walked over to another towering pile, wondering what Zetsu would say if he came back empty handed. He had a feeling it wouldn't be good. At the very least he'd find some reason to dock his pay. Last month Gaara had forgotten something Zetsu had asked him to do and he hadn't seemed to care, but the following week Zetsu had called him into the storage room and he'd accidentally knocked over some expensive glassware leaned right up against the door. Of course, Zetsu claimed it had been an accident and he hadn't put it there and maybe next time Gaara should watch where he was going.

Gaara could distantly hear the little bell attached to the door trilling. It was going to be a long day stuck in this stuffy little room.

* * *

Across town, a spotless black car was pulling up to 23 Elm Street.

Crisp footsteps approached the door and immediately gained entrance. Curtains were yanked shut, doors locked and bolted.

"Please, make yourself comfortable." Karin gestured towards a peeling chair in the corner in a hushed voice. It was a real honour to have the leader of Okagature make a personal visit and she wanted to show the appropriate respect.

Orochimaru ignored her offer with a look of distaste.

"The scroll... If you please." He spoke in sly manner. Everything about this man was sly, from the perfectly tailored suit he wore to the way his eyes stared almost unblinkingly at the framed painting above Karin's bed. A long pink tongue lightly traced his lips.

"Of course sir! I'll just... I'll just get it then." Karin sounded a bit disappointed but brightened as she moved towards the painting. It was a landscape; mountainous terrain spotted with trees. In a moment it was unceremoniously thrown to the ground to expose a highly polished silver safe. Karin carefully turned the knob. From across the room, Orochimaru waited with impatience.

Finally, there was a click and the little door swung open.

With trembling fingers Karin delivered the scroll, seal still intact, to the man. He took it almost before it had left her fingers. A sharpened letter opener made quick work of the wax and spider-like fingers quickly caressed the paper open. Five minutes passed in silence while Orochimaru's narrow eyes ran down the length of it.

"Arrange a meeting with Tsunade." His voice sounded pleased. A sickly looking smile tugged at the corners of his pale lips and he strode out of the room without a backwards glance.

"Yes, of course! But sir, if I may ask, what--" Karin said in slight panic.

The door shut with a loud click.

"--does it say?!"

**X X X X X**

Ooh... what _does_ it say?


	3. Just another class

**I only got 1 review last chapter, but it made me sooo happy. :D**

**My goal is to get anyone who has an opinion about this story to make it known to me.**** So if you don't feel like leaving something longer, how about a quickie? One word reviews of "Good", "Meh", or "Sucks"? Okay, hopefully not "Sucks", but I won't begrudge you your opinion. You just have to leave it first... **

**Chapter three, away!  
**

**X X X X X**

"Yo, watch where you're fucking going pretty boy!"

Gaara recognized the boy who'd spoken as Naruto's friend_, _the one he was always chiding for swearing too much. The dark-haired boy who'd bumped into him scowled but didn't speak. He looked strange somehow, but Gaara couldn't quite pinpoint why. Probably just new. He still had his backpack slumped over one shoulder and Gaara could see him clenching his class schedule in one hand.

"Well you gonna fuckin' apologize or what?" Kiba held his arms out in a shrug but when the boy still didn't answer, just shook his head in disgust and kept walking. The new boy slouched away in the opposite direction.

_Friendly..._ Gaara went back to staring at the locked door in front of him. Classes wouldn't begin for at least ten minutes. Usually he could time his pace so that he got to school just as the bell was ringing, but Deidara had called early that morning to tell him not to come in and rather than clean or read, he'd just left early. Gaara glanced down at his watch, an old relic he'd found stashed behind the fireplace, and sighed inwardly. _Ten minutes... _After the frustrations of yesterday morning, he was really beginning to hate clocks. _  
_

Deliveries were still scarce at the moment. The police were cracking down on crime, part of the mayor's re-election promise to make the city safer, so the people who normally frequented Akutsuki's little shop seemed to be holding onto their stolen goods for the time being. Just last week some influential members of the Usurans, a rival gang, had gone down for drug possession. The lower echelons of the crack ladder would soon be rising to replace those higher up who'd be doing jail time. The bust would be good for business eventually; less competition, but it also meant a whole new crop of criminals that Gaara would have to endear himself to or be out of a job. It'd taken weeks to convince the old ones to trust him enough to buy from him.

"Oh my God, seriously? He took me to Denny's._ That's_ how bad it was." A couple of girls in the same class were milling around the same door gossiping. The one who'd spoken leaned her blond head back against a locker dramatically.

"Damn! Well I hope you tell him take you somewhere good next time or there won't _be_ a next time." Her friend tried to flip her hair back, forgetting it was currently tied up in two buns and they giggled. The blond girl continued, slightly calmer.

"Oh, he totally knows. I was texting his sister the other day, I mean, he took me to _Denny's_ for God's sake, and she was like, don't worry I'll talk to him."

"Yeah, she's cool. When I was all depressed 'cause Neji didn't ask me out, even though I dropped like a bazillion hints, she took me to the new ice cream place, you know, the one by Home Depot?"

They watched people walk by for a beat and then; "So anyways, what happened? Did you let him kiss you, or...?" She lapsed into giggles. Gaara was beginning to wish he'd opted to circle the corridors instead of waiting. This conversation was going from annoying to unbearable.

"Nah, we just-" But she was cut off when the other girl shushed her and they both turned to watch another walk by. The pink haired girl looked over at them but didn't show any sign of recognition and as soon as she was out of earshot they started to gossip about her in furious whispers.

"Ohmigod, did you _see_ that? She's totally ignoring me just because I blew her off to go out with Choji."

"What a bitch. And you know she's just jealous 'cause she get anyone to go out with _her_. It's like, get _over_ it already." Unfortunately, their whispers were still plenty loud enough for Gaara and anyone else who happened to be passing by to hear. He checked his watch again. _Ring bell, ring! _

After what felt like hours of overheard whispered conversations passed and it didn't, Gaara took a closer look at his watch. He'd been having bad luck with clocks lately, this one could very well be as dead as the one in the kitchen. Which reminded him, he still had to get some batteries that fit that one. Considering it was made sometime in the 1930's, he anticipated difficulty. But other than a slightly dingy face from years of carbon build-up, his watch seemed to be functioning normally. It really was ridiculous the amount of things he found stashed in strange places. An old boot in the cupboard, a lone teapot in the closet in the master bedroom, then the watch behind the fireplace. He wondered sometimes if his landlord might have been obsessive compulsive... _  
_

"Naruto! Dude, wait up." Gaara tensed a little at the blond's name. Kiba caught up to his friend not far from where Gaara was standing.

"Hey, what's up?" Naruto asked cheerfully.

"Nothing. Look, you got money on you? I wanna get something from the vending machine. Swear I'll pay you back, 'kay?" Kiba had to yell the last part to be heard over the bell.

"Sorry man, you know I would if I had some on me." Gaara could hear the grin in the blond's voice even without looking at him.

"Fuck, I'm hungry-"

"Aw come on Kiba, clean it up. You want me to wash your mouth out with soap?"

"Fuck you." Kiba grinned back at his friend. "Anyway, I gotta go ditch something in my locker, catch up with you in class, 'kay? Prolly get Choji to spot me some chips or whatever."

"Yeah, later."

It had been months since the incident but Gaara still felt uncomfortable around the blond; ever since Naruto had kissed him.

"Move, move. Hot coffee coming through." Asuma was weaving his way through the students who had assembled in front of his door, jacket still reeking of cigarette smoke.

"You're late," an angry student told their teacher, his tone slightly petulant. Gaaara wasn't sure why, Asuma had been late for his first period class for as long as anyone could remember, his morning smoke break always going a little overschedule. Reminding him of this fact yet again wouldn't suddenly make him punctual.

"You were late last week too, Shino."

"You're late _every_ week."

"I'm the teacher, it's allowed."

The jingling of keys could be heard amid the casual babbling of voices, a click, and then; " 'Ere we go. Everybody shut up and get ready for some exciting note-taking." A few people groaned as they walked past, protesting that all they ever did was take notes. "Stop complaining, it's the very essence of sociology!" Asuma responded cheerfully. "Oh, and someone remind me to tell the custodial staff about that lock. Damn thing keeps sticking." Asuma flicked some ash off of his shoulder and watched as the last stragglers trickled in from the hallway.

"You, Inuzaka, remind me at the end of class."

Kiba, previously engaged in an animated argument with Choji, looked over at his teacher. "What? Remi-"

"Never mind." Asuma said irritably. He shut the door, not bothering to switch on the light, and crossed the room to where his laptop sat closed on his desk. He had a habit of mood-swings and students often accused him of PMSing, although never to his face.

"Hyuuga, you remind me." Two heads with almost identical long dark hair turned towards him.

"Boy Hyuuga." One of them nodded. The other went back to staring her notebook, pencil poised over a fresh sheet of paper.

Asuma pulled down the white projection sheet and soon the darkened classroom was glowing dimly with the day's notes.

"Okay everyone," Asuma clapped his hands together, "functionalist and conflict theories."

"We already did that one!" Naruto's triumphant voice rang loudly in Gaara's ears and he cursed his hypersensitivity to the blond. The blond's voice was loud to begin with, doubly so when it was protesting work, but if Gaara could just stop _thinking_ about him..._ Wait, what?_

"We're doing another one, Naruto. This _will_ be on your exam people! Get to writing." Asuma sat in his usual swivel-chair, facing the class, and began to explain the points in greater detail.

"The media as an agent of socialization: This could be looked at from one of two perspectives, basically the negative one or the positive one. Guess which is which." He started to laugh at his own half-joke but quickly covered it by pretending to cough. "Ahem. As I was saying, a lot of people don't like to admit how much of an effect media really has on them, but really, it's got quite--"

"Hold on, we really did do this one already." The Hyuuga boy interrupted his teacher in his somewhat formal, to some pretentious, manner. A few people murmured in ascent. Asuma looked slightly affronted but still looked around at the board.

"Did we?"

Neji held up his copy of the note.

"Expect me to read that all the way from over here?" Asuma demanded, already getting up to check someone else's in the front row.

After a moment he conceded that they had indeed. "Alright then, guess I got the slides mixed up. Get ready for the workplace! Just hold on a sec while I get the right- ah! there it is." Asuma settled back down into his chair with the correct slide displayed above him and began to address his next topic. Gaara could hear Naruto muttering in the back about favouritism.

"So, the workplace as an agent of socialization..."

Gaara dutifully copied down the words on the screen, dully considering that the subject might actually have been interesting with a different teacher.

"...Marx's ideas about alienation. Remember he lived during the industrial revolution, people who weren't rich worked..."

_I wonder what time it is..._

"C'mon man, you know I'm good for it. I'm starving!" Kiba had resumed his attempt at convincing Choji to spot him some cash in fervent whispers.

"I dunno Kiba," Choji told him somewhat uncomfortably, "you still haven't paid me back for last time."

"What!? Whaddaya mean last time? I paid you back like-"

"Hey- shut up back there!" Asuma had apparently noticed Kiba's increasingly loud voice. He was normally a pretty laid-back teacher, even more so than Kakashi, but Kiba just seemed to be rubbing him the wrong way this morning.

While everyone was watching Kiba and Choji get reprimanded, Gaara took this opportunity to glance at Naruto. The blond was currently lounging back in his seat, trying to hold a pen between his upper lip and nose.

"This is an academic class, you're supposed to know better." Asuma looked at the two of them disapprovingly for a moment before returning to Sociology in cheerful tones.

It'd been summer break, two weeks before the beginning of the new semester. Walking down a shortcut through the forest, a sudden torrential downpour had forced them to seek shelter in Naruto's house nearby. Naruto had let him borrow a dry shirt. Gaara remembered it had been somewhat uncomfortable changing, tense. Then they'd gone downstairs and talked on the couch for a bit, Gaara not saying much but Naruto talking enough for the both of them. Eventually the weird tenseness had reappeared, this time for strongly and Naruto had leaned in closer. And closer. Until their lips had touched. Gaara hadn't really understood what was happening until that moment. Freaked out, he'd muttered some excuse and gotten the hell out of there.

He still had the shirt, too embarrassed to return it.

They'd ignored each other quite well for the first year of highschool. It was only after Naruto had unkowingly helped him meet an important deadline that they'd become quasi-friends in tenth grade. Gaara still swore Deidara'd held off on telling him about the delivery, _urgent_ apparently, until he was sure Gaara wouldn't be able to make it. But Naruto had coincidentally been riding his bike around the shop and he offered to let Gaara borrow it. Gaara still felt a little uneasy about telling him the obvious pharmaceuticals he was carrying weren't actually medication for his ailing grandmother. But he'd had no choice but to lie, if the school board found out one of ther students worked for a gang, he'd be kicked in no time flat. He _needed_ that job, and he _needed_ a high school education if he was ever going to get out of Konoha and attend college. Gaara jerked himself out of his thoughts and tried to listen to what Asuma was saying.

"...and when you're an adult, the people you see at work are really your only-- Oh! Damn. I was supposed to do this at the start of class. We have a new student. Stand up Uchiha." Ah ha, he wasn't the only one distracted today.

_Wait, new kid?_ Gaara looked curiously towards where Asuma was gesturing and sure enough, saw the familiar head of dark hair falling over pale smooth skin. The boy's navy blue shirt draped casually over a pair of white shorts. He was still slouching too, hands stuffed into his pockets, looking at Asuma with a haughty look in his eyes before sitting back down.

Gaara dimly heard Asuma say sadly, "You're all looking more and more like Kiba every day..." before the bell signalling the next period rang.

**X X X X X **

**Whaou, lotta dialogue in there. Too much? I wanted to do a longer chapter, but the ending just wasn't working. Figured I'd post what I had anyway, just to get it out there. So yeah. Review?  
**


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